Are new Downers getting blocked?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Snowdog

My friend Gando never did get past the 'purgatory' stage here. He could log in, but couldn't post, and never got an activation email. I tried to intervene and find out why but even after I was told it should all be good, he still couldn't post. He didn't bother coming back. I see him on The Tolkien Forums now.

Several of the 'Downers who hadn't logged in for years and then came back experienced similar problems with the verification e-mail, that they would not have solved had they not contacted some of the staff in person.

Which makes me wonder whether we haven't become "too well fortified" for new members to join. Which would be sad. Any evidence to the contrary?

[The Barrow-Wight]

"Too Well Fortified" would be a generous way of describing the actual state of affairs in our admissions office, which would be better characterized as "Absentee Landlord".

I scanned the new applications for years but became weary of approving bots with cleaver names and ignoring well-intentioned recruits with suspicious email addresses. Instead, for the past few years I have often just let things linger in limbo until someone made a special plea. This is obviously not optimal.

There are two possible solutions, as I see it.
(1) Drop the moderation and tolerate the spammers, which are likely to be more active than our membership.
(2) Create a better process for new members to validate their humanity (Elfenticity? Dwarvishness?) [The current question and answer is easily circumvented by clever Goblins.]

Any thoughts on how we can be more welcoming to new wights but less vulernable to pesky marauders?

Thanks!
BW

[Inziladun]

I remember well the constant war with the spammers, some of whom would merely copy/paste from other posts to "prove" their legitimacy, while peppering useless or dangerous hyperlinks everywhere. I certainly wouldn't want that again.

Maybe some sort of probationary period, where new members could comment on existing threads and posts, but couldn't immediately start their own? That would still leave it somewhat open to the bots, but maybe also asking a "deeper" Tolkien question on registration would help.

[Formendacil]

I assume that promoting new admins wouldn't help with this specific issue? Not that a site this sleepy *needs* more admins, but if it's a manpower issue, perhaps it's time for the first new "Steward of Cardolan" in a generation?

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

I assume that promoting new admins wouldn't help with this specific issue? Not that a site this sleepy *needs* more admins, but if it's a manpower issue, perhaps it's time for the first new "Steward of Cardolan" in a generation?

I agree. I would volunteer; unfortunately, that would truly be the case of the cure being worse than the disease.

[The Barrow-Wight]

I have removed new user moderation but strengthened the application process to weed out the bots and spammers. It seems to be working for the moment. Let's see how long it takes for a determined maggot to wriggle its way into the barrow.

[Inziladun]

Good deal. To the Fire with them!